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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849549">Jukai</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan'>lisachan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Leoverse [238]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Glee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, What-If</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:28:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849549</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Leo never liked forests and woods, and Aokigahara doesn’t represent an exception.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Leoverse [238]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Jukai</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>WARNING:</b> This story is a <b>what if</b> from the original 'verse. In the canon course of events that, from Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The World, led to Broken Heart Syndrome, <b>this has never happened</b>.<br/>In this specific instance of the universe, a What If from the canon branch, Blaine and Leo don't break up in Ireland, during their world tour, but in Japan. Drama ensue.<br/>(There's also another bit that's different from the canon course of events, but I will let you find that out by yourselves.)<br/>Written for this week's COWT #10 M2, prompt: Japanese folklore.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leo never liked forests and woods, and Aokigahara doesn’t represent an exception. It even looks a little bit scary, actually, intricate and lush as it is, all narrow paths invaded by bushes and roots. It’s also pretty cold, today, and it stopped raining only minutes ago, so there’s no one around and the road is all muddy.</p>
<p>He came all this way here and now he’s not sure he wants to set foot inside it any longer.</p>
<p>Taking a big sigh, he closes his eyes for a moment, centers himself and then takes the path, walking inside the forest. As he does that, he passes by a sign planted in the ground, saying in English and, presumably, also in Japanese, that if he’s thinking about killing himself he should reconsider and seek medical attention.</p>
<p>He’s not here to suicide – at least he doesn’t think so. He is, however, terribly sad, and he craves for the solitude this place can offer. They say the forest is so thick it blocks out the wind, therefore, if you go deep enough inside of it, you can find places where you can hear nothing. They say the foliage can be so intricately entwined there are spots of complete darkness even during meridian hours. And they say during winter the fog is so dense you can almost touch it, that you can lose yourself.</p>
<p>He kind of wants all of that, right now. So he marches on.</p>
<p>It’s hard to walk on the path, mostly because of how messy it is. The shape is not definite, eaten away by the vegetation growing carelessly all around. He has to be careful as he advances, because the ground is wet and slippery and he risked falling on his ass twice already. It’s too cold to allow himself to fall into a puddle and wet himself – he’d come up with a cold or even a fever and no one would be here to take care of him.</p>
<p>Maybe Blaine would care, but he doesn’t know for sure. Perhaps he would care until he received a call from home, and the baby boy who clearly represents his future more than Leo ever will or could.</p>
<p>Leo stops in the middle of the road and clutches his fists down his sides, breathing the freezing cold fog in and out through the nose. He then turns around and tries to see the beginning of the road he was following – but he can’t. Much like his story with Blaine. He knew the path he was walking on, but God knows when he started walking and God knows if he’s ever gonna be able to go back.</p>
<p>His heart starts beating a little faster as his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He should go back. He knows he should go back, but how can he? And to what? It’s over between Blaine and him, now. None of them can take back what’s been said, what’s been admitted. Now they both know. Blaine never believed in them. Never thought they could share their life for real. And that’s mostly Blaine being a blind fucking idiot, but that’s also partly Leo never giving him a reason to trust that he could be more than a young and driven lover, that he could turn into a life partner. But how could he even? He himself has no idea if he could. Responsibilities, obligations, being together through the thick and thin – for fuck’s sake, he’s twenty years old. He doesn’t know if he can manage something like that. Blaine should’ve just given him enough time to find it out. But it’s useless now – that’s never going to happen.</p>
<p>Leo turns back to the deep of the forest, the sudden motion of his head forcing a couple tears to run down his cheeks, and then gasps and jumps back as he sees a boy standing right in front of him, pale like the moon, with the biggest baby blue eyes he’s ever seen. “Jesus Christ!” he yells.</p>
<p>The boy crouches his shoulders – he doesn’t look a day older than sixteen and definitely not Japanese – and offers him an apologetic smile. “Sorry I scared you,” he says, “I tend to move silently.”</p>
<p>“No… it’s okay,” Leo breathes in and out, trying to calm the crazy beating of his heart, “I just wasn’t expecting meeting… anyone. You speak English.”</p>
<p>“I do,” the boy chuckles, “I’m from the United States. My name’s Cody.”</p>
<p>“What a coincidence,” Leo smiles too. The boy is very pretty, it feels nice to speak with someone like this, even in such an odd place, “Me too. Lima, Ohio.”</p>
<p>Cody opens his eyes wide, and his peachy lips form a perfect circle on his face. “Unbelievable!” he says, “Me too!”</p>
<p>“What?!” Leo actually laughs, “That’s crazy. What were he odds?”</p>
<p>Cody chuckles too. His voice sounds so nice, his laughter is like a chime. “I guess we just defied them. The odds, I mean.”</p>
<p>“That’s cool, isn’t it?” Leo asks, and Cody nods, sitting down on a pretty thick root coming out of the ground.</p>
<p>“Come sit by my side,” he invites, “It’s been a while since I’ve spoken with someone.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Leo says, sitting next to him, “Since when?”</p>
<p>“Since I entered this forest, more or less.”</p>
<p>“Ah, okay,” Leo smiles, “That can’t have been too long ago,” he jokes, and Cody offers him a vague smile Leo can’ translate into anything specific, so he keeps talking. “How old are you?”</p>
<p>“Mmh,” Cody tilts his head to one side, “I stopped counting at some point, but I should be around twenty-two or twenty-three.”</p>
<p>“Nothing you say makes sense, you know that, right?” Leo chuckles, a little uneasily. Cody smiles, though, and he’s so cute Leo chooses not to overthink it just to keep enjoying his company. “You look like a teenage boy, though.”</p>
<p>“Ah, I’ve always looked like this,” Cody blushes and looks down, embarrassed, and Leo thinks he’s never seen anyone this cute, boy or girl, “They used to mock me because of this. They said I looked like a girl.”</p>
<p>“Your schoolmates?” Leo asks, and Cody nods. Leo clicks his tongue, upset by the idea. “Idiots,” he says, “Why is it that people just can’t stop hurting each other? Fuck, the more I grow up, the more I’m convinced that the human race must be wired for pain or something. To give it and to receive it.”</p>
<p>Cody smiles again, and his smile is a little sadder, now. “That sounds… a bit hopeless, don’t you think?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Perhaps, but what’s there to hope for?” Leo snaps, thinking about Blaine, their break-up, having to go back home and admit with Adam, his parents, everybody else, that they were right and Blaine wasn’t the right one for him, “Every stupid happy thing you have in your life sooner or later will be taken away from you by someone who wants to hurt you. And that’s life, that’s it. Being happy in the short gaps between feeling desperate and feeling miserable.”</p>
<p>Cody seems to hold his breath for a moment, but for some reason Leo gets the feeling that he’s not really <i>holding</i> his breath, that he’s just mimicking the act of doing it. Then, right after that, he realizes that he hasn’t heard nor seen Cody breathe, not even once, since they started talking. “It might be true...” he says in the tiniest voice ever, “But sometimes those short gaps can be worth it, don’t you think?” he finally turns to look at him, and his eyes look sad and distant and watery and at the same time alight with the very matter of sunlight, “Did it never happen to you? To feel so happy you thought it had been worth it even if you had to swim through an ocean of pain to get there?”</p>
<p>Leo shivers, seeing Cody flicker like a hologram on the verge of disappearing. </p>
<p>“What...” he whispers, but Cody stops him.</p>
<p>“When I stopped feeling like that… that’s when I ended up here,” he says, “And I’ve been here ever since.”</p>
<p>Leo never had much intuition for spiritual things. He has never seen a ghost, never felt a spirit. For a second he’s surprised that he couldn’t sense anything different when he met Cody, but after all, he realizes, why think it should’ve been different? We’re taught by novels and movies that you should feel cold and scared in the presence of a ghost, but wasn’t that a human being, before? So why should they feel any different?</p>
<p>“...when did it happen?” he asks, hoping his question won’t bother him.</p>
<p>Luckily, Cody smiles. “As I said, I stopped keeping count. I think I’ve been here a few years, though. I never met anyone else before, though.”</p>
<p>Leo nods slowly. “So… why do you think you met me?” he asks, blushing a little.</p>
<p>Cody chuckles – the sweetest, saddest sound Leo has ever heard. “I don’t know,” he answers, “Perhaps you needed to hear what I had to say. Or the other way around.”</p>
<p>Leo looks at him once again. That pretty face, those rosy cheeks, those silky hair, that haunting smile. He will never forget him, not even in a hundred years. Not even in a thousand. Even if Blaine and him get back together, even if he meets someone else and builds a happy life together with them, whoever they might be, the dust his bones will turn into long after he’s dead will still remember him.</p>
<p>“I think it was me who needed you,” he says in a whisper. “And now I’m not sure I want to go.”</p>
<p>“That would make every word I said completely useless,” Cody chuckles. He leans in just a bit. “You must leave,” he says, his lips curling into the most adorable smile.</p>
<p>Leo nods absent-mindedly. He covers the distance between them, pressing a short, innocent kiss on Cody’s lips. “Thank you,” he says.</p>
<p>Cody stands up and pats his clothes free of the dirt that stuck with him as he sat on the root. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Take that path,” he adds, pointing at a specific dirt road, barely drawn between two thick walls of green, “It’s the safest back to the exit.”</p>
<p>Leo frowns a little. “Safest?” he asks, “Who should I be kept safe from?”</p>
<p>Cody smiles just a little. “Not all of us want people like you to go back out,” he explains, vague and yet still terrifying.</p>
<p>Leo swallows and then nods, standing up too. “Bye, then,” he says.</p>
<p>Cody just raises a hand and waves him goodbye.</p>
<p>Leo takes the path and, a few steps in, he turns back to say bye once again. But Cody’s already gone.</p>
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